📄 Category

public and global health

386 papers

Public and global health examines how we protect communities from disease, manage outbreaks, and improve well-being across the world. This vital field connects diverse research on everything from infectious disease control and vaccination strategies to the social factors that shape our collective health. Because these studies often impact policy and daily life, understanding them quickly is more important than ever.

At Gist.Science, we track every new preprint published in this category on medRxiv to ensure you never miss a breakthrough. We process each submission to provide both plain-language explanations for general readers and detailed technical summaries for experts, making complex findings accessible to everyone.

Below are the latest papers in public and global health, freshly summarized from the most recent medRxiv releases.

📄 public and global health

High-Resolution District Level Contraceptive Prevalence in Pakistan Using a Bayesian Small Area Estimation Approach

This study employs a two-stage Bayesian small area estimation framework that integrates routine commodity data, census figures, and national survey benchmarks to generate high-resolution, statistically robust district-level estimates of contraceptive prevalence in Pakistan, thereby addressing data gaps and enabling more targeted family planning interventions.

Ibrahim, M., Naz, O., Javeed, A., Irum, A., Khan, A., Khan, A. A.2026-02-28
📄 public and global health

EXPLORING CLINICIANS PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS AI-RADIOLOGY & ITS CLINICAL ADOPTION: A QUALITATIVE STUDY FROM PAKISTAN

This qualitative study of 13 clinicians in Karachi, Pakistan, reveals that while AI in radiology is viewed as a promising assistant for specific tasks like screening and workload reduction, its successful adoption in this low-resource setting depends on addressing infrastructure gaps, ensuring data privacy, providing targeted training, and maintaining human oversight through strategic, staged implementation.

Bismillah, I., Tikmani, S. S., Afzal, S., Naz, N., Vohra, L. B.2026-02-28
📄 public and global health

The Prevalence, Prevention, and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases in Twelve African Countries (2014-2019): An Analysis of the World Health Organisation STEPwise Approach to Chronic Disease Risk Factor Surveillance

This study analyzed WHO STEPS data from twelve African countries between 2014 and 2019, revealing a 5% prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and critically low rates of prevention and treatment uptake, thereby highlighting an urgent need to improve diagnosis and expand care to reduce premature deaths.

Ng'ambi, W. F., Estill, J., Merzouki, F. A., Zyambo, C., Chiwanda, J., Beran, D., Keiser, O.2026-02-27
📄 public and global health

Epidemiological characteristics and vaccination impact scenario modelling of concurrent Clade I mpox outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi

This study utilizes transmission-dynamic modeling to demonstrate that concurrent Clade I mpox outbreaks in the DRC and Burundi are driven by distinct mechanisms—sexual transmission in non-enzootic areas versus zoonotic spillover in enzootic regions—and that timely detection combined with tailored, single-dose vaccination strategies, particularly prioritizing children in enzootic zones and sex workers in non-enzootic zones, could significantly reduce infection burdens.

McCabe, R., Knock, E. S., Halliday, A., Cox, V. M., Olivera Mesa, D., Chopra, K., Ajong, B., Bizimana, J.-C., Kalonji, T (…)2026-02-27
📄 public and global health

Effect of an integrated housing intervention for people involved in the criminal-legal system who have housing instability

This study demonstrates that an integrated housing, medical, and behavioral health intervention for individuals involved in the criminal-legal system significantly improved housing stability, particularly for older participants and those initially unstably housed, although high-severity substance use remained a barrier to success.

Fan, A. Y., Flax, C., Ibrahim, N., Tracey, D., Hernandez, A., Moscariello, S., Price, C. R., Meyer, J. P.2026-02-27
📄 public and global health

Characterising associations between mental distress, mobility, and COVID-19 restrictions: a U.S. study

This U.S. study reveals that higher levels of self-reported anxiety and depression during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic were significantly associated with slower recovery of pre-pandemic mobility, indicating that psychological distress influences population movement behaviors beyond the effects of formal restrictions and mortality rates.

Fiandrino, S., Kulkarni, S., Cornale, P., Ghivarello, S., Birello, P., Parazzoli, S. M., Moss, F., De Gaetano, A., Liber (…)2026-02-27
📄 public and global health

Exploratory analyses of Immunologic Features in a Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir for Long COVID

This exploratory analysis of the PAX LC trial found that nirmatrelvir/ritonavir treatment for Long COVID induced no significant virological or immunological changes compared to placebo, suggesting that the lack of clinical benefit may be due to the persistence of viral antigens and the absence of treatment-driven immune modulation, although symptom improvement in both groups was associated with reduced RANTES levels.

Bhattacharjee, B., Sawano, M., Hooper, W. B., Wang, K., Tabachnikova, A., Monteiro, V. S., Lu, P., Baevova, P., Rodrigue (…)2026-02-26
📄 public and global health

Wastewater testing during the South African 2022-2023 measles outbreak demonstrates the potential of environmental surveillance to support measles elimination

This study demonstrates the potential of wastewater environmental surveillance to support measles elimination in South Africa by successfully detecting measles virus RNA in samples from districts where clinical surveillance failed to identify cases, despite challenges with RNA degradation in stored samples.

Ndlovu, N., Mabasa, V., Sankar, C., Msomi, N., Phalane, E., Singh, N., Gwala, S., Els, F., Macheke, M., Maposa, S., Yous (…)2026-02-25
📄 public and global health

Effect of Kangaroo Mother Care during the first 72 hours of life on early growth and breastfeeding in normal birth weight newborns: Protocol for a Randomised Controlled Trial

This protocol outlines a multicentre, randomised controlled trial in India designed to evaluate whether prolonged Kangaroo Mother Care (at least 8 hours daily) during the first 72 hours of life improves early weight gain, breastfeeding quality, and maternal-infant bonding in healthy, normal birth weight newborns compared to standard care.

Kumar, A., Mishra, M., Tiwari, M., Singh, V. P., Mukhopadhyay, R., Srivastava, A., Kumar, M., Agarwal, A., Singh, S. N. (…)2026-02-25